The invention relates to a blow moulding machine for shaping plastics material pre-forms into plastics material containers, comprising a plurality of blow moulding stations with blow mould carriers for holding blow moulds, comprising a clean room for arranging or conveying the blow moulding stations under aseptic conditions and comprising an installation access to the clean room for installing the blow mould carriers with the blow moulding station components.
The invention also relates to a method of exchanging components of a blow moulding station in a clean room of a blow moulding machine, in which the clean room is opened and in which the blow moulding station components are exchanged.
In addition, the invention relates to both a beverage filling plant and a beverage container production plant.
Generic blow moulding machines, in particular stretch blow moulding machines, beverage filling plants and/or beverage container production plants are well known from the prior art.
By way of example, the Offenlegungsschrift (Laid-Open specification) DE 10 2008 038 141 A1 discloses a plant for the production of plastics material containers with a clean room in which the plastics material containers are both produced and filled with beverages. In this respect the production plant comprises an apparatus for shaping plastics material pre-forms into the plastics material containers and a filling device for the latter. The shaping apparatus has a plurality of blow moulding stations with blow mould carriers for holding blow moulds, in which the plastics material pre-forms are expanded to form the plastics material containers. The subject matter of DE 10 2008 038 141 A1 is hereby made the content of the disclosure of the present application by reference in its entirety. It is to be understood that in order to produce plastics material containers of different design, for example with respect to a volume and/or a contour, it is also necessary for different blow moulds to be used on the shaping apparatus. A corresponding exchange is carried out manually on the shaping apparatus in this case in that a first blow mould set with blow moulds of a first type is exchanged for a further blow mould set with blow moulds of a second type. After the exchange, it is necessary to sterilize not only the new blow moulds inside the clean room in order to prevent contamination of the plastics material pre-forms or the plastics material containers respectively with germs, but also the previously opened clean room itself.
In order to facilitate an exchange of the blow moulds, it is known to keep a set of blow moulds to be exchanged in a mobile magazine apparatus in which the blow moulds are received individually on receiving means of a carrier device. In this case a transfer of the individual blow moulds between a blow moulding station of a shaping apparatus and the magazine apparatus can be carried out manually or at least in a semi-automated manner. Some mobile magazine apparatus can have in this case a cleaning device, by means of which the blow moulds can be rinsed, brushed, polished, disinfected and/or sterilized for example at the same time.
As a result, although blow moulds which are already sterilized and therefore ready for use immediately can be produced, there is always nevertheless a risk that the clean room will be contaminated during the opening and so a sterilization of the clean room and the devices, tools etc. present in it will necessarily have to be carried out after the exchange of the new blow moulds. This, however, leads to a considerable delay in the production.